четверг, 2 апреля 2015 г.
среда, 1 апреля 2015 г.
oAllegiant Air Pilots Plan Strike For Thursday; Could Ground 250 Flightsw
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Earlier today, we reported that the pilots of Nevada-based budget carrier Allegiant Air took their beef with the carrier to the public by posting an open letter to passengers voicing their concern about carrier’s stance on safety standards and treatment of employees. Now, the pilots say they’re prepared to go on strike Thursday, a move that has the potential to ground 250 flights.
Bloomberg reports that more than 500 pilots plan to walk off the job tomorrow because the airline has failed to comply with a court order to reverse a controversial scheduling system and restore other employee benefits.
Daniel Wells, president of the Airline Professionals Association Teamsters Local 1224 says the strike will commence at 3 a.m. eastern time and could affect more than 33,000 daily customers to the airline.
The strike threat caps off two years worth of conflicts between the airline and Teamsters over issues regarding benefits and rules involving pilot seniority and schedules.
Pilots claim that a new scheduling system put in place by the airline forces employees to be away from home for extended periods, resulting in exhaustion. Previously, the union tells Bloomberg, a court found the system change was a violation of the law governing negotiations and ordered the airline to restore the prior system.
In a letter published earlier today on the website for the union representing Allegiant pilots, the Teamsters accused the airline of being more worried about its bottom-line than the well-being of employees and customers.
“The company’s profits are propped up by the extra workload placed on its understaffed, underpaid and overworked workforce and its minimalist approach to maintenance and safety,” reads the letter. “Allegiant represents the worst in an economy today where greedy CEOs disregard needed investments into a company’s workforce and infrastructure at the expense of passenger safety and for the benefit of Wall Street.”
The airline defended itself against the pilots’ safety warnings, saying that “Allegiant has one of the best safety records among passenger airlines in the world, and complies with all FAA regulations.”
Allegiant did not provide comment on the pending walk-out, but Bloomberg reports the company filed a lawsuit on Monday to prevent a strike, saying such a measure would be illegal because the two parties haven’t exhausted options for a resolution.
Still, Wells says the airline’s original action in changing the scheduling system activated a clause that makes the strike lawful.
“Restoring the status quo back to what it was prior to the beginning of negotiations is what we want,” Wells tells Bloomberg. “Once we get back to that place, we can talk all day long about the contract we need to get done.”
Allegiant Pilots’ Thursday Strike Plan Threatens 250 Flights [Bloomberg]
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oRetailers Only Have Eyes For You With Latest Online Marketing Effortsw
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On the one hand, it can be very convenient to get a coupon emailed to you based on your obsession with tacos. On the other, having every website you visit blast your eyes with ads for the same darn pair of lime green shoes you already bought as part of a Halloween costume and never intend to buy again. But some retailers say they’re working on tailoring such marketing efforts down to each person individually, to maximize effectiveness and cut down on irritation.Whittling down the audience to each customer in order to find out not only what they’ve already bought and sell them something similar, retailers are now trying to get down to the individual and make sure they’re also offered different kinds of products, or to get them into physical stores based on online browsing habits, notes Sarah Halzack of the Washington Post.
Retailers from CVS to Barneys New York are going after shoppers with personalized pitches, studying which sites customers visit as well as whether or not they’ve opened or clicked through emails, checked out a company blog post or used a certain kind of coupon.
“For one million users, we want to have one million different site experiences,” Matthew Woolsey, Barneys’s executive vice president for digital told the Post.
As such, Barneys’ new Web site features personalized content that stems from data culled from both a shopper’s in-store purchases as well as how they surf for stuff online. So for example, a woman who browses online for fine jewelry might wait to buy it in-person. A retailer might think however, that just because she browsed and didn’t buy, she might not come into a store.
But by studying behavior across channels, Barneys says it’s learned the value in continuing to keep up the online marketing efforts, instead of switching to a new tactic.
There’s also the creepy factor — retailers are learning that shoppers often don’t like sharing data with retailers, but are okay with it when it generates obvious value for them. You give your location data to Google Maps, Halzack notes, because in exchange you get information that helps you get where you’re going.
It’s a fine line, but one that retailers are trying to walk, with varying success. Again, please don’t spray ads of something we’ve already bought across every single site we visit, because then it feels like being stalked by an insistent fan obsessed with that one time you actually did want lime green shoes.
Instead, figuring out what customers don’t have and might want is the key. That’s what CVS is working on, the company’s vice president of customer relationship management told the Post. Haven’t bought mascara lately? No trips to the store for aspirin? Could be time to stock up — here’s a coupon.
“Sometimes they may not realize we carry some of their other favorite items or that we may have a special that week on a type of product they would normally pick up elsewhere,” she explains.
Retailers are tailoring their Web sites and promotions for you. Just you. [Washington Post]
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oMcDonald’s To Raise Workers’ Wages, But Only At 10% Of U.S. Restaurantsw
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The good news for McDonald’s employees looking for a raise — the company plans to pay workers more and offer new benefits. The not-so-good news — this only affects about 10% of the company’s locations in the U.S.The fast food chain confirmed to the Wall Street Journal today that that will raise pay for workers at company-owned McDonald’s outlets by at least 10%. These employees will also see new benefits like paid vacations.
The increases will start on July 1. That’s when affected employees get a bump so that they are receiving at least $1/hour above the local minimum wage, which ranges from the federal minimum of $7.25/hour to more than $10/hour in some states and cities. Seattle, for example, is currently ramping up the minimum wage so that it reaches $15/hour in the coming years.
The Journal says the raise will impact 90,000 McDonald’s employees, but the announcement does not compel franchisees to increase pay or add benefits. That means only about 1-in-10 U.S. McDonald’s stores will be affected by the policy change.
This separation between franchisees and their corporate overlords is at the center of a current legal battle involving McDonald’s. Last year, the federal National Labor Relations Board Office of the General Counsel ruled that while McDonald’s HQ allows franchisees to set their own pay levels and hiring policies, the company exerts such influence over the franchisees that the corporate office could be considered a joint employer in labor disputes.
And in late 2014, the NLRB filed multiple complaints against both franchisees and McDonald’s Corp. for allegedly retaliating against protestors.
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oWoman Who Chased Down Google Street View Car And Flashed It Could Now Be Facing Chargesw
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(Google Maps)
While there are many people out there applauding the woman who chased down a Google Street View car so she could flash it and expose her chest to the world, thus, crossing that off her bucket list, local authorities in her Australian town aren’t quite so pleased with her public display.Earlier this week, the South Australian woman admitted to local media that she’d exposed herself to the camera car so she could fulfill a dream of getting on Google Maps.
“I got to tick something else off my bucket list. I met Sam Newman and now I am on Google Maps,” reports ABC.net in Australia.
But the area’s superintendent says despite any fame she’s gained, showing off your private bits in public is not allowed, no matter where the picture ends up, calling her actions “the same as someone flashing their genitals, and the public expectation is that police take action.”
He noted that a man was recently arrested for exposing himself in public, and “this incident is no different.”
“It is not appropriate for anyone to expose themselves in public places,” he added. “Our community should be able to expect a bit of decency.”
She’s received a summons since the incident to appear in the local magistrates court at a later date.
Google Street View flasher from Port Pirie reported for exposing breasts to camera car [ABC.net]
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oYou Can Now Finally, Really Truly, Opt Out Of Verizon Wireless Tracking “Supercookies”w
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Back in January, Verizon Wireless said they would let users opt out of a problematic universal tracking “super cookie” they had been using for years. This week, Verizon’s finally got their act together and the opt-out option is live.As of Tuesday evening, the New York Times reports, Verizon’s systems have been changed to stop inserting the tracker for customers who opt out of the program.
Verizon Wireless customers can now log into the website and change the setting under “Customer Privacy Settings.” The opt-out there, to disable the tracking supercookie, is Relevant Mobile Advertising (although opting out of the other two, CPNI settings and Business and Marketing Reports, is probably also a good idea for the privacy-minded). Verizon customers can also call 1-866-211-0874 to opt out of the RMA program.
Consumers and privacy advocates have been pushing back on Verizon’s data collection for years. Here’s how it works: Verizon appends a little header that you can’t see to all web traffic coming out of your phone. The tracker, called a UIDH (unique ID header) is consistent and permanent.
Unlike regular site tracking code, clearing out your cookies and upping your privacy settings doesn’t do anything about these. And they build a comprehensive, unique, entirely trackable history of basically everything you’ve ever done on your phone.
Until this change, even customers who had opted out of receiving marketing related to the tracking were still having their activity tagged. And research found that even though Verizon swore up and down that no third parties could access that data, those reassurances proved to be not entirely true.
A representative for Verizon said in a statement, “As the mobile advertising ecosystem evolves, and our advertising business grows, delivering solutions with best-in-class privacy protections remains our focus.”
Verizon Wireless Customers Can Now Opt Out of ‘Supercookies’ [New York Times]
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oFormer Korean Air Exec Asking Appeal Court To Overturn “Nut Rage” Convictionw
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The former Korean Air executive who was convicted of violating aviation safety law in connection to what became known as the “nut rage” incident is asking an appeals court to overturn the conviction, which stemmed from her rage over improperly served macadamia nuts.Lawyers for Cho Hyun-Ah, who also happens to be the daughter of Korean Air’s chairman, asked an appeal court to overturn the ruling, arguing in the Seoul High Court today that the plane never got to the point where it could be said that it was in flight, reports AFP.
A district court had sentenced her to a year in prison after finding her guilty of violating aviation safety after her anger over the nuts had forced a taxiing Korean Air Lines to return to its departure gate at New York’s JFK airport in December of last year.
That court had ruled that “in flight” should apply to an aircraft from the second it starts to move. That means that even though the flight had barely left, her actions illegally altered the plane’s flight.
“It’s hard to say that her act actually hindered security and the plane’s safety,” her lawyer said. “She really had no intention to impede the plane’s safe flight.”
At the time, she was vice president in charge of in-flight service, and reportedly flew into a rage after a flight attendant served her nuts in a bag, instead of on a plate.
She was also convicted of assault on the cabin crew, after the chief steward testified that Cho made him kneel and beg for forgiveness, while whacking him with a service manual. The flight attendant involved has since filed a civil lawsuit, claiming Cho attacked her and screamed profanities, and then pressured her to lie about the incident to government regulators.
Korean Air heiress appeals ‘nut rage’ case [AFP]
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